Following a legal ruling requiring the University to pay millions to the K-12 North Carolina Public School System and a subsequent rise in the cost of campus parking permits, Transportation said the Centennial Campus Perimeter Parking lot, located just off Centennial Drive, will be modified into a permitted parking lot at the beginning of the fall semester.
Director of Transportation Tom Kendig said the recent fines had little influence in the decision to make the shift.
“[The fines] were always in the back of our minds, but more than anything we felt the timing was right,” he said.
According to Kendig, under current operating conditions, the parking lot is open to anyone and is meant to be a means for commuter students to catch Wolfline buses to main campus.
The problem, and main reason for the change to a zoned parking lot, is students with classes on Centennial Campus are using it to park while they attend classes just hundreds of yards away, a reality Kendig said is unfair to the vast majority of students who do not have the same option on Main Campus.
“We deliberately called it a perimeter lot rather than a park-and-ride lot because we planned for it to become a permitted parking area all along,” Kendig said. “The main point for us is that we anticipated this shift.”
Jake Vestal, a chemical engineering sophomore and research assistant at the Partners I building on Centennial Campus, said the change would be beneficial to the students who inhabit the developing area.
“The bottom line is the engineering students need a place to park on Centennial Campus,” Vestal said. “If it becomes a zone lot and I’m guaranteed a spot, then it might be worth it to pay the money.”
Kendig said that although Centennial Campus contains several parking decks, they are reserved for faculty, graduate students and staff. The staff of private businesses located on Centennial also use the decks.
Vestal said the lot is overcrowded on a daily basis to the point where Centennial Campus students sometimes park illegally, risking fines, to make classes on time.
University students are not the only people being affected by Transportation’s decision.
Ashley Chaput and Christina Harris, both seniors at Middle Creek High School and future students in textiles and business management respectively, said they use the Centennial lot twice a week to attend a Spanish class on Main Campus.
“Other than the fact that we have to drive around 20 times to find a spot, [parking at the Centennial lot] has worked out great,” Harris said.
Chaput and Harris said they probably would have reconsidered their plans to take the college class through a high school program if they had to pay for a parking permit.
“We had a choice between taking the course at Wake Tech for free or [at N.C. State] for $500,” Harris said. “If we had to pay $300 on top to park, I don’t think it would be worth it.”
Kendig said he understood the transportation need for students living in the Centennial vicinity.
“We are definitely in need of a park-and-ride in that area,” Kendig said. “We are pushing for more of those opportunities.”
Kendig said much of Centennial Campus, which pushes 1,000 acres, has already been set aside for other projects, but said he thought it would be feasible to incorporate a park-and-ride lot into the mix.
To his knowledge, Kendig said there would not be a price differentiation between permits for the Centennial lot, which will be deemed an E-permit zone, and those for parking on Main Campus.